Bikepacking Bikes

Inspiration

What is Bikepacking?

Simply put, bikepacking is the synthesis of mountain biking and minimalist camping; it evokes the freedom of multi-day backcountry hiking, with the range and thrill of riding a mountain bike. Click the link below to find out how to start. Start Here

How to Bikepack.

Broadly speaking, there are three bikepacking genres to choose from – Multi-day Mountain Biking, Ultralight Race & Gravel, and Expedition & Dirt Touring. Click the link below to learn about each.
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Where to go.

As important as it is to have a reliable bike and pack as light as you can, choosing the right route is perhaps the key to your enjoyment. Visit this section to learn how to choose a route, and some insight into navigation.
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When & How Long?

The average bikepacking trip should be based around riding between 25-75 miles (40-120 km) per day, depending on the weight of your load, the difficulty of the terrain ...
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The Routes Map

We have ~100 routes on our worldwide bikepacking routes map. Cick the link to see them plotted or select from the links to the right to filter. View The Map

Classic Routes

There are some routes that are made classic by their sheer perfection, and others by races. View The Classics

By Length (days)

By Location

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It's not all riding bikes and sitting around a campfire; there's a lot of effort that goes into building content at BIKEPACKING.com. And we couldn't do it without continued support from great companies in the bike and outdoor industry. Get in touch and we'll tell you about our advertising, product review, and sponsorship opportunities... Send us an email

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We'd love to share your bikepacking stories and photography with the rest of the community. We welcome high quality contributions, including trip reports, videos, gear reviews, gear lists, recipes and of course, bikepacking routes from around the world.
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Granny Gear Inches: Ride Now, Save Your Knees For Later

It’s not uncommon to hear about a cyclist being sidelined by a knee injury. A crash is often the benefactor of such turmoil. However, riding long hours with a heavy load can also wear on your knees — if not immediately, over time.

Cycling can dish out a lot of stress on knees. Even more so while bikepacking — which usually involves extended riding time on a bike loaded with gear. As one would expect, many knee problems arise from bike-specific issues like saddle height and setback, cleat position, and improper bike sizing. Others are based on intensity, such as increased distance and duration, and using high gearing and low cadence. Either way cyclists’ knees are among the most vulnerable joints for repeated stress injury, and it’s not uncommon to hear of a rider who’s had to resort to knee surgery in their 40s and even 30s. So what can we do to prevent such a horrible sofa sentence? For starters, a proper bike fit is paramount. Another preemptive strategy, especially for those of us who like to frequent steep and rocky trails, is to have a gear ration that features a more than adequate granny gear. Spinning can be the key to keeping stress off the knees during a nasty climb, particularly important in the latter half of a big day.

So what’s a good granny gear?

Naturally it’s different for everyone. The likes of Jay Petervary and Josh Kato might not require the same granny gear as a skinny guy with bird legs (such as myself). It also depends on how much you pack, and where you ride. An expedition bikepacker heading to the Himalayas will have very different needs than a racer over relatively flat terrain. Proper gearing is something you just have to feel out based on the situation, as well as your own skill, strength and biomechanics – though starting low is never a bad idea. Know what gearing works for you and make a note of it to have as reference when purchasing a drivetrain or fine tuning your existing setup.

How many gear inches is yours?

To start, let’s talk a little bit about the system of measurement. Gear inches is one of several relative measures of bicycle gearing. It’s basically derived from a formula and provides an indication of the mechanical advantage of different gears. Values for gear inches typically range from 18 (very low gearing) via 70 (medium gearing) to 125 (very high gearing); as in a car, low gearing is for going up hills and high gearing is for going fast. Essentially to calculate gear inches, use this simple formula:

An equivalent system customarily used by continental European cyclists is metres of development, which measures the distance travelled with each turn of the crank. That is, metres of development is calculated using the same equation replacing inches in diameter with meters of circumference. Thus gear inches and development differ by a factor of π times imperial-to-metric conversion. To convert from gear inches to metres of development, multiply by 0.08 (more precisely: 0.0254π).

How to find your wheel diameter.

Note that the wheel diameter in the above equation isn’t really the rim diameter; it’s the actual diameter of the mounted and inflated tire. Of course they are always different, and while this isn’t exactly accurate, here’s a simple chart with diameters in millimeters and inches. For the sake of brevity, this is limited to popular tire sizes that might fall into the bikepacking category. For additional sizes, check out this chart.

700c x 35mm tire 27.2″/.692m

700c x 38mm tire 27.5″/.698m

700c x 40mm tire 27.6″/.702m

700c x 42mm tire 27.8″/.707m

700c x 45mm tire 28.0″/.712m

29er x 2.0” tire 28.5″/.724m

29er x 2.2” tire 28.9″/.734m

29er x 2.4” tire 29.3″/.744m

29er x 2.8” tire 30.0″.763m

29er x 3.0” tire 30.5″/.774m

27.5 x 2.2″ tire 27.4″/.696m

27.5 x 2.4″ tire 27.8″/.706m

27.5 x 2.8″ tire 28/5″/.724m

27.5 x 3.0″ tire 29.0″/.736m

27.5 x 3.8″ tire 30.6″/.777m

26 x 2.0″ tire 26.0″/.661m

26 x 2.2″ tire 26.4″/.671m

26 x 2.4″ tire 26.8″/.681m

26 x 2.8″ tire 27.5″/.699m

26 x 3.0″ tire 28.0″/.711m

26 x 3.8″ tire 29.6″/.752m

26 x 4.8″ tire 31.6″/.803m

OK, so really, what’s a good granny gear?

Again, different strokes for different folks — literally — but I’ll share what I’ve found. To me, when bikepacking, that magical number falls around 19 gear inches or under — specifically for a mountain bike destined for steep terrain and trails. This number differs on a gravel bike as there is usually less tire resistance and rotational weight. To illustrate, here are five bikes that I’ve ridden in the past 8 months and what their granny gear translates to in gear inches. Each shows the bike, wheel size, and drivetrain on the left, then the granny gear ration (front x rear) and gear inches.

Salsa Pony Rustler, 27.5+, 1×11 (30x42t) 20.7 gear inches

Niner RLT 9 Steel, 700c/35mm, 2×11 (36x32t) 30.6 gear inches

Surly ECR, 29+, Rohloff (34txRohloff 14s) 18.1 gear inches

Surly Krampus, 29+, 2×10 (22x36t) 18.6 gear inches

Marin Pine Mountain 2, 27.5+, 1×11 (32x42t) 22.1 gear inches

The ECR/Rohloff combo has the lowest gearing. And while 1st isn’t the most frequently used gear on this bike, there have been plenty of times where it came in handy, such as the High Atlas in Morocco and the Transnevada. Conversely, the Marin Pine Mountain at 22 gear inches was a little hard on the old knobbies. A 30t chainring would have brought it to the same level as the Pony Rustler, and made it more suited for the steep terrain that the Altravesur route dished out. The Niner RLT 9 Steel was absolutely brutal on the steeps; but pretty good for going fast on flat terrain.

For reference, let’s take a look at the high gear to add perspective to the overall range of each of these bikes and drivetrains.

Salsa Pony Rustler, 27.5+, 1×11 (30x11t) 79.1 gear inches

Niner RLT 9 Steel, 700c/35mm, 2×11 (46x11t) 113 gear inches

Surly ECR, 29+, Rohloff (34txRohloff 14s) 95.08 gear inches

Surly Krampus, 29+, 2×10 (36x11t) 99.8 gear inches

Marin Pine Mountain 2, 27.5+, 1×11 (32x11t) 84.4 gear inches

The 2×10 offers the widest range of gearing which is great for a grueling expedition. For the sake of comparison, how about a classic 26×2.2″ mountain bike with a 3×9 MTB drivetrain, let’s say a 42-32-22 crankset and 11-32 cassette? The granny gear would be 18.15 and the high gear would be 100.1.

Tags

The White Industries crank can take on (at least) a 20-tooth gap so you could do a 46/26 (or even 24) – 11/42 giving you a greater range the all the other mentioned possibilities! :-)

Smithhammer

Solid article, Logan. And timely for me, since I just put a 40t cog on my Fargo for long, loaded climbs (28x40t = 19.95 g.i.)

Interestingly, I just applied the same formula to the GX 1×11 drivetrain on my Hayduke (30x42t = 20.7 g.i.) – less than one gear inch apart.

Mbanzi

Great article! I did the same calculations a while back and came up with the same granny of 18.6gi on my Krampus with a 36/22+11-36 combo. Using a 11-40 Sunrace cassette or Wolftooth cog would bring it down to 16.8gi.

1x just isn’t viable on 29+ for bikepacking (for a normal cyclist) unless you go to SRAM Eagle, or have a direct mount crankset (like the Race Face AEffect or SRAM X-SYNC) that can take a smaller than 30t chainring.

For 27.5+ 1x is more feasible, especially if you go 11 speed with a Wolftooth 45t cog, a 30+11-45 will give you 19.3gi. The new XT 11-46 cassette will work even better at 18.9gi. Or, once again, get a smaller than 30t chainring.

http://www.geekonabike.com mike kunnecke

Anyone else thought of putting on a 64bcd inner ring without the front shifter. All of my 1x crank a old triples. Because it doesn’t take physic to see them coming, I’ll manually move the chain to the inner ring at the bottom of the longer slogs.

just to clarify, what was the size of the rear sprocket on your Rohloff, 16 tooth? Thanks for the great article!

DamagedSurfer

Great post! Pride comes before the surgeries!

I find many of the gravel bike offerings to have incomprehensibly high gear ratios for their intended purposes. And truly, for mixed terrain gravel/road bikes, I find a 1x to be silly as you sacrifice way too much on either the high or low side. Seriously how difficult is it to adjust a screw on a FD? What do they weigh – all of 50 grams? It seems in the rush to go light we as riders have abandoned good sense at times. When I built up my custom cross bike I went with a 28/44 White Industries crank paired with a Praxis Works 11/40 cassette (10 spd). This gives me ample gearing for loaded touring both on and off road. Except for all the most impossibly steep stuff, I never need the granny unloaded, but again, it’s there when I need it.

For reference I’m 6’1″ 190 pounds and ride 6 days a week via commuting, mountain biking, gravel sessions, and bikepacking. I would consider myself a fit, strong rider, probably like most riders :), but still having a good granny is essential to protecting your knees. I’m 33 now and want to keep riding until I pass from this mortal life to eternal bikepacking bliss. I’ve met too many riders with injuries due to repetitive stress rather than accidents.

Wm Coe

Thanks for the great post. This type of info really helps a newb like me, keep em coming.

Chris Leydig

Bike nerd article. Love it! My fleet is all 9 speed; for bikepacking abroad it seems best (in lieu of Rohloff). Using a 22/36 11-32 combo on my 26+ Troll and so far it’s been perfect

My Krampus and my Soon to be ECR will only have 1x cranks so I can’t do this.

http://www.bikepacking.com/ BIKEPACKING.com (Logan)

Yeah, that certainly makes cassette replacement feasible… And you can probably rely on classic tools found in even the most primitive bike shops…

http://www.bikepacking.com/ BIKEPACKING.com (Logan)

Thanks Wm!

http://www.bikepacking.com/ BIKEPACKING.com (Logan)

Yeah, I agree. I truly think 2×10 is the way to go for bikepacking. However, 1x simplicity is kind of nice.

http://www.bikepacking.com/ BIKEPACKING.com (Logan)

Hey sorry for the delay… Getting caught up after being out for a few days. Yes, it’s 16t.

http://www.geekonabike.com mike kunnecke

Thanks Lewy, that’s exactly what I’m thinking. I’m gonna go out to the garage & do it now while it’s raining.

matt

for bikepacking I reckon you need under 19 at one end and above 110 at the other but that type of range is becoming terribly unfashionable. Once rider and gear get above 95kg you might want to expand that range even further!

DamagedSurfer

Hi Logan,

My comment was more directed at using a 2x for mixed terrain type bikes in which you will frequently be on pavement. I for one would miss the higher gearing a 2x allows in that scenario. Regarding mtb’s and bikepacking in general, I’m starting to think I’ll try a 1x system, especially now that I’ve added a dropper to my hardtail 29er. The only problem is that Shimano Deore XT is so damn reliable I can’t justify removing it and switching it out until it breaks down.

Derek Britton

I was able to get 18.6 on the low end and 106.4 in high gear. 42t/28t SRAM X5 Crank paired with an 11-36t XT Cassette that I modified with the Wolftooth 42t + 16t cogs. Now it’s an 11-42t cassette with the SRAM X5 crankset. Great combo to use for my gravel/CX adventure bike build